O'Neal's 25 points help push Heat past scrappy Bulls 108-95

So center Jermaine O'Neal took care of the scoring and forward Joel Anthony handled the rebounding.

With O'Neal scoring a season-high 25 points and with Anthony, who started in place of Beasley, adding a season-high 10 rebounds, the Miami Heat pushed past the injury-ravaged Chicago Bulls 108-95 Friday at AmericanAirlines Arena.

"We came out to try to control the tempo," said O'Neal, who shot 8 of 13 from the field and 9 of 11 from the line. "Coach wanted to go to me right away."

For a while, it also seemed like the Heat was lacking Dwyane Wade, with its star guard closing the first half with five points and five turnovers.

But the Heat also had an answer for that, with forward Quentin Richardson converting four first-half 3-pointers and scoring 14 of his 23 points over the opening two periods.

"Got a couple of open looks, knocked them down, just got hot from there," said Richardson, who finished 7 of 11 on 3-pointers.

Wade came around to finish with 22 points, with his baseline dunk midway through the third quarter breaking him out of his 1-of-6 funk and shaking the Heat out of a malaise that had it down 51-50 earlier in the third after leading by 10 earlier.

"It wasn't a pretty game," coach Erik Spoelstra said. "At least we're learning how to grind out some of these games. They just kept on hanging around, until we broke it open.

"Each game is different and this one we had to find different ways to win, and we had to do it a little ugly."

It should, of course, have required significantly less, even with Beasley out with a bruised left thigh sustained in the previous game.

And yet with the likes of former University of Florida forward Chris Richard, journeyman point guard Jannero Pargo and rookie James Johnson getting significant minutes, the Bulls kept it competitive most of the way.

With the victory, the Heat moved 2 1/2 games ahead of Chicago in the race for one of the final four playoff spots in the East, in seventh place in the conference, a half-game ahead of idle Toronto.

"We put ourselves in a position where we have to scrap for playoff position," said O'Neal, with the Heat finally creating a homecourt advantage with what now is a five-game home winning streak.

The Bulls lost for the seventh consecutive time, with frustrations reaching the point where center Brad Miller was called for a flagrant foul against Wade with 4:43 to play and also was called for a technical foul.